


Burned

by Mouse9



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, and friends who RP, ideas that come from pictures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 14:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20409580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mouse9/pseuds/Mouse9
Summary: Molly's come to Baker Street because someone managed to get a rather bad sunburn.If she isn't careful, it's her that will get burned.





	Burned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mostlyjustgoose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlyjustgoose/gifts).

He was red.

Alarmingly so.

This was Molly’s first thoughts when she stepped into the cool, dim bedroom of Baker Street and caught her first glimpse of the horribly burnt Sherlock Holmes.

Mrs. Hudson had called her and asked if she knew of something stronger than aloe to take care of sunburns. She didn’t go into much detail, save to say it was bad and elicit Molly’s assistance after work.

_ Mrs. Hudson had under elaborated. _ Molly thought as she stared at the angry red flesh of Sherlock’s naked back.

Tomatoes were redder, but only just.

“Have you come to stare or are you going to be of use?”

Startled, her gaze jumped from the lines of his back to his face, not quite as red but still burnt. The dimness of the room made his eyes darker, more turbulent.

She was used to dealing with a cranky Sherlock when he was hurting so the tone flowed from her like water.

“Mrs. Hudson called,” she began but he was not to be placated.

“Mrs. Hudson needs to keep her nose in her own affairs.”

“She was worried. And after seeing you, I understand why.”

Crossing the room, she placed the bag she carried on a chair and began to pull items out.

“At this point, I think it’s easier to ask what hasn’t been burnt?”

“The top of my head. My hands, the soles of my feet. The area my swim trunks covered.”

Again her gaze went to his back, trailing down to the swell and curve of his buttocks. He lay on his stomach on the bed, no covers, clad only in a pair of loose-fitting boxers. The trunks of the boxers were shorter than his swim trunks had been because from the patch of white on the back of his upper thigh, she could plainly tell the stark contrast.

He had to be in pain.

“Right.” She began to unpack items, taking out a small box. “First, a lukewarm baking soda bath to draw the burn out.”

“Are you mad?” his eyes widened as he watched her remove items. “I can’t move, how am I supposed to bathe?”

Molly was already heading towards the bathroom.

“In your time.” She called out. 

Turning on the tap, she made sure the water was tolerable; not too cold but just enough that he could stand the warmth in it. She poured the baking soda in and mixed it with her arm.

Sherlock eventually walked in, body held awkwardly, gaze petulant.

“In the bath for no more than fifteen minutes,” She dried off her hand and stepped around him. “I’ll set a timer. Trust me.”

Slipped from the bathroom, she closed the door behind her and headed back to the bedroom.

There, she stripped the bed and remade it with a waterproof cooling pad and fresh sheets on top that.

Then she headed into the kitchen where she made a sandwich and took a few biscuits from the tin as she boiled water for tea. 

As the timer on her phone went off, she heard the door to the bath open.

“I said fifteen minutes!” she called out, picking up the kettle and pouring water into a cup. Sherlock hobbled past the small entryway heading to his room clad only in a towel slung low on his hips- the stark white strip of flesh that started at the bottom of his waist and went beyond the blue of the towel again showed just how burnt he was.

“Close enough,” he answered, his voice growing fainter as he walked back into his room. “Got bored.”

Clearing her throat, she finished the tea and picked up the tray.

“Are you decent?” she asked pausing just outside his door.

“What sort of question is that?” Came the response.

“I mean, do you have pants on?”

“It was painful enough getting the first pair off!”

Taking a deep breath, Molly pushed open the door and stepped into the room decidedly not looking at him sitting on the edge of the bed clad only in a towel. Placing the tray on the nightstand, she stepped to his chest of drawers and plucked out the first pair of boxers she found.

“Here.” She said, handing them over to him. “In case Mrs. Hudson comes up later.”

“Oh very well,” he sighed dramatically. She turned her back to him, digging in her bag once more for the burn gel and pain medication.

She was acutely aware of the movement behind her as she loitered; the sound of the towel, the soft hiss of pain as the rough terry cloth encountered the damp red skin. The rustle of cotton and the creak of the mattress that told her boxers were being carefully pulled on.

“Wasting your opportunity to catch me in the all togethers?”

The retort was snark tinged with pain and once again Molly ignored it.

“I’ve already seen your all togethers,” she answered dryly as she turned back to him, items in hand. “Lest you forget, you’re a bit of an exhibitionist when you’re high.”

She smiled thinly as she walked towards him. “More so than usual.”

If he blushed, she couldn’t tell, but he looked chagrined.

“I want you to eat a bit of something.” She told him. “Then take these. They aren’t strong.” She placed two white pills on the tray. “But it’ll help with the ache. After that, I’ll put this burn gel on you. It won’t hurt. Might actually feel good.”

“I’m quite capable of slathering myself down.” He snapped.

Molly raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Raise your arm over your head and reach to the left.”

The glare she received told her he knew she was right and didn’t like it one bit. 

“Then hush up and eat.”

Picking up the towel he’d dropped on the floor, she walked around the bed.

“What are you doing?” There was a bit of hesitation in his voice as he couldn’t turn to follow her movements. Kicking off her shoes, she climbed onto the bed and walked on her knees towards him. 

“Starting on your back while you eat.”

Laying the towel on the bed, the dry side down, she squirted a liberal amount of the gel onto her hand and rubbed them together. Despite the cool feel of the gel, her hands might have well been hot irons searing his flesh for how he howled and tried to jump from the bed.

“Kruger-spoof!”

“Excuse me?” Her hands paused on his back.

“You heard me!” He kept moving away from her hands. “You know I’m in pain and you lie to me with your vile deceptions.” 

She blinked at his metaphors and again touched his back with the gel. Again he howled in pain.

“Oh stop it,” she snapped, continuing to carefully apply the gel despite his wriggling. “You’ve been shot and tortured before, this is nothing. “

“The pain of a bullet is over quickly before the body goes into shock to-ouch! - numb it. One can disassociate during-Ow! Blast it woman! -during torture so it is possible not to remember the experience. I-confound it, you vile creature! - I have been burned alive by the sun!”

She tried her best, but Molly couldn’t help the snickering as he spoke.

“Are you amused by my pain?”

“I’m amused by your almost Victorian curses. Vile creature?”

“You’re hurting me!”

“I am not, you child!”

Finishing his back, she wiped her hand on the towel before climbing from the bed.

“There, your back is finished. If you’re finished eating, I can get your chest and arms and you can properly abuse me to my face.”

His nose wrinkled in a sneer before taking his last bite of his sandwich, washing it and the pills down with the last of his tea. Extending his arms outward, he looked down his nose at her as if to say  _ Please. Do your worst. _

Sucking in a deep breath through her nose, she poured more gel onto her hands. Even an angry red, his bare chest was a distraction. She could count on one hand how many times she’d seen his bare chest and out of those, only one was when he wasn’t injured in some way. 

The slight lift of his eyebrow told her he knew the effect he was having on her. The smug look was quickly replaced with a yelp the moment her hands encountered sunburnt pectorals.

“Wench! This hurts worse than my back! Cease this at once!”

Molly couldn’t hold back the peals of laughter as she smoothed gel over his chest, working on the top half first, getting his shoulder and arms as well.

“Wench? I’ve been called a great many things in my life, but this is the first time I’ve been called a wench.” She ran a hand over his biceps, feeling the muscles contract under her fingers.

“I’m deciding if I should be insulted.”

“Mol-ly…”

Ah, there was the whine she was accustomed to.

“It hurts!” He continued to wriggle trying to move away.

“Sit still. I’m almost finished. Next time you’re out undercover, remember sunscreen.”

“How did you know I was undercover?”

She’d run out of chest and had to work her way down to his abdomen. She swallowed, keeping her attention on the applying of the gel, not where she was applying it. And the question. Her focus on those two things would keep her mind off where her hands were.

“You were on a case, there’s no other reason you’d even be on a beach. You were only in swim trunks and a hat going by the burn on your body and not your head or your face.” Hands rubbed gel against red abdominal, muscles twitching at her touch and the coolness of the gel. “The back of your neck is burned which tells me it was a ball hat. If it were a regular case, you would have had your suit and coat on. Therefore, undercover.”

Her hands passed his navel, carefully finishing the skin at his waist.

“Clever girl.” The hint of pride in his voice made her look up as her hands left his body. The air was thick with something undefined. Something that made Molly swallow hard again.

“I do pay attention when you speak.” She said, trying to break this…whatever it was in the room. But it refused to be broken.

“I underestimated you.” Sherlock murmured; his voice low. Molly fought back a shiver and straightened, picking up the towel to wipe her hands. 

“Were you going to do my legs?”

She blinked, looking up from the towel. 

“Pardon?”

Sherlock was slowly pulling his legs onto the bed, leaning back with a wince. 

“My legs,” he repeated, gesturing towards his bare legs as red as the rest of him. “I thought this position would be better than your kneeling before me. “

Her mouth went dry. One look told her the bastard knew exactly what he was saying.

“You’ve done the rest of me Mol-ly,” he cajoled. “You wouldn’t leave my legs untreated, would you?”

She looked at him, then to his legs. The red skin overlying muscular thighs and firm calves.

_ Bastard. _

Pouring more gel onto her hands, she may have laid hands on the top of his upper thigh a bit harder than she had with the rest of him. He yelped and glared at her.

“You did that on purpose.” He growled. 

“Now we’re even.” She answered with a faked pleasantness. “Hold still please.”

It was difficult enough, slathering gel along his reddened upper thighs and keeping her gaze on the task and not sliding a few meters upward to the dark green boxers. 

The room was silent, thicker will with that same feeling of…something, as Molly’s hands moved first across one bare thigh and then the other. There were no words spoken even as she nudged the inside of each leg and he instinctively bent his knee so she could rub gel onto the undersides of his thigh. The only sounds were controlled breathing. She knew she was trying to control hers, to not give anything away as her hands skimmed across almost forbidden parts of his body. 

But for his breath pattern to sound heavily identical to hers? That was telling on its own. The feeling in the room wasn’t uncomfortableness, it was more…unresolved. That unresolved feeling lessened as she moved further down his legs, rubbing gel over his calves and finally his shins, making sure she got the top of his sunburned feet also.

His foot twitched as she finished, the only movement he’d made since she’d started his legs. After the initial yelp.

Molly almost let out a sigh of relief as she stepped back. 

“There,” Only then did she dare to look at his face. His had gotten his mobile and was focused solely on that, as if nothing she’d done had affected him. The slight reddening at the tips of his ears where’d there been no red before told her the truth.

“Does it feel the least bit less painful?”

He wiggled a bit before looking up from his mobile, finally focusing on her.

“I will admit, it doesn’t feel like tiny knives digging into my flesh each time I move.”

She accepted the praise. Capping the gel, she set it on the side table and wiped the remainder off her hands with the towel. She’d drop that in with the dirty sheets and take them down to Mrs. Hudson when she left.

“Thank you for taking such good care of me, Molly.”

The words were meant to titillate, and Molly found herself blushing at the entendre. 

“Just trying to help.” She answered. “Next time you should be able to apply it yourself or have John help you.”

“Or I could just text you.”

She had to turn away from his gaze. It was too much.

“Um…y-you can. Of course, I’m w-willing to help.”

Escape was necessary now. Before she dug herself in.

“I’ll let you rest. Take it easy today and keep hydrated.”

She left before he could say another word, moving quickly to the bathroom. She needed to wash her hands first. 

The tactile memory of his skin under her palms still made them tingle as she rinsed the remaining gel from her hands. Looking into the mirror, she caught sight of her pink cheeks and dilated pupils. She was an open book to someone like him.

Molly breathed in and let it out in a heavy exhale.

“Stupid girl.” Her chastising was quiet. “Stupid, stupid girl.”

He was bored, in pain and she had once again walked right into his radar. The looks, the sounds, the…small twitches she thought she caught? All part of her overreaching imagination. 

Best to get these things downstairs and pretend this never happened. It was easier to pretend it was her imagination than to discover it was all real and he just didn’t want her in that way. 

Much easier.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to MostlyJustGoose who was part of a group who came up with Sherlock spewing Victorian curses when he was hurt. I took the lines they gave me and ran with them.
> 
> And all the thanks, as usual, to Ukthxbye for being my beta and asking the hard questions: "Was this a prompt or a random bunny?"


End file.
